1. Field
One or more exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a substrate for a microarray having a bright fiducial mark when irradiated, a method of manufacturing the substrate, a microarray including the substrate, and a method of obtaining optical data from the microarray.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in a typical microarray, probe materials that bind to a target material are immobilized to a plurality of distinct regions of a substrate. The microarray is used in analyzing many target materials by contacting a sample, possibly including the target material labeled with a fluorescent material, with the probe materials on the microarray, and measuring light obtained therefrom.
Since the regions (hereinafter also referred to as spots) of the microarray where probe materials are immobilized are generally arranged to have a high density on the microarray, the number of irradiated and detected spots used in one experiment may be thousands to tens of thousands; in other words, a single microarray may contain thousands, or more, of individual regions disposed thereon. Accordingly, a manipulator, which analyzes image data obtained from a result of analysis of the microarray, generates a map or pattern of locations of the spots, before calculating the brightness of each of the spots, e.g., due to fluorescence of the fluorescent material used to label the target material hybridized to the spot on the microarray, and local backgrounds before quantizing an image signal obtained from the microarray. A microarray map is a template used by detection software so as to efficiently search for a location of each spot in the pattern on the microarray. Accordingly, locations of each spot are to be efficiently determined from optical data obtained from the microarray having many spots.
Typical methods of determining a location of a spot include a method of manually determining a spot on an optical image based on known spot information and a method of using robotic spot placement equipment.
However, a method of easily finding and analyzing a location of each spot from optical data obtained from a microarray is still to be developed and would be beneficial.